Talk:Precision-guided munition

adam's complaint

"...weapons intended to maximize damage to the target while THEORETICALLY minimizing collateral damage."

I think that the use of "theoretically" in this context is redundant and bordering on non-NPOV. It is redundant because it is already stated that these are "intended" traits. We could go even further and just define "precision-guided munition" as "weapons that maximize damage to the target while minimizing collateral damage", then we could discuss to what extent existing weapons fit that definition.

While I'm no expert on the topic, I think that existing weapons (laser guided bombs, for example) do fit that definition without any qualifiers (such as "intended" or "theoretically"). The important point is that they minimize collateral damage RELATIVE to the intended damage. This does not mean that they reduce overall collateral damage.

Finally, there should probably be some note about how these traits are relative to the expense or risk to the attacker. An assasins knife could be considered "precision guided" just because there is little chance of a random person being killed by such a weapon. However, the assasin needs to be highly trained and needs to take great risks to use it in such a precise way.

adam

The collateral damage aspect was mostly for civilians and pretty irrelevant till few years ago. The key problem was at first that some targets (sturdy bridges, battleships) could only be hit effectively enough by very large bombs. The bombers couldn't carry many such bombs, and unguided ones had a marginal hit probability. The end result was that sometimes a whole bomber wing bombed a bridge and didn't destroy it. Guided bombs did better - a detachment of four bombers could attack the same bridge and destroy it. That was an enormous leap in capability against suitable targets - and it was even cheaper than dumb bombs. Pretty much the same had been done with dive-bombers before, but dive-bombing required a very strong airframe, became increasingly difficult as aircraft became faster and it was only accurate if the aircraft dived low enough to be in range of light anti-air weapons. Btw, there's no mention fo "collateral" in the whole article by now. Somebody seems to have edited that already.Lastdingo (talk) 15:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

inappropriate deletion of appropriate links

Rebelguys2 - you just deleted the three most detailed technical tutorials on this subject matter available on the web.

• Guided and Unguided Weapons
• Laser Guidance
• GPS Guided Weapons - Parts I-V

This is material which is entirely consistent with WP guidelines and I would like you to reinstate it.

Incidently I did not post these links and received a complaint about your deletion.

Ckopp 14:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

increased damage

Someone should put in that PGM also increase the likelihood of damage being done to the object being targetted, making them more effective weapons. Stargoat 16:56, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It says that twice in the first paragraph - directly in the first sentence, and by implication in the second. Securiger 06:41, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

misses

I felt that this paragraph was nonsense, and removed it:

Ironically, despite the greater precision of precision-guided weapons, the failure of their guidance systems can cause greater damage than a miss from an ordinary bomb. Misses from older, unguided munitions are generally normally distributed around the aim point. Thus it can be assumed that the further you are from the target, the safer you are. On the other hand, most smart bomb misses are caused by system failures—a jammed steering fin, computer failure, loss of homing signal, etc. In this case, the weapon is actually more likely to miss the target by a very large distance, than by a small distance.

This seems like pure speculation and unless someone can cite examples or a credible source that makes a statement to this effect, this should stay out. The attempt to invoke some kind of probabilistic argument is particularly ill-advised. --Mike Lin 19:45, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Too much U.S. emphasis

This article suggests that PGMs are purely an American enterprise, which is simply not true. It needs a broader perspective on non-U.S. efforts, which I'll try to add in the next week or so.

ArgentLA 21:03, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

How about adding a history section, including German Ruhrstahl SD 1400 and like? [1] Talamus 20:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Also the Henshels & Fritz X, as well as (American...) Felix & GB-8. Trekphiler 12:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

There were at least German, U.S. and Japanese guided weapons in WW2, in that order of relevance. Btw, the first guided weapons that I know about were prototypes of anti-ship torpedo gliders in WWI, developed for the German Zeppelins. I have a photocopy with text & photos about that.Lastdingo (talk) 01:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Misleading sentance in second paragraph

"The United States Army began experimenting with radio-controlled remotely guided planes in the First World War, but the program had few successes (see Operation Aphrodite)" - know little to nothing of the subject, but according to the Operation Aphrodite entry, it was purely within WW2. Is the sentance incorrect, or is there are more appropriate entry to cite?

Less "Misleading" than " misreading": the U.S., along with Britain, did experiment with RC in WW1 & interwar; Aphrodite was entirely WW2, but wasn't connected (directly) to previous work. See (for instance) A J P Taylor's Jane's book of RPVs. Trekphiler 05:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Views Expressed in Why We Fight (2005 film)

In the aforementioned film, interviewees state (I'm paraphrasing here) that there is "no such thing as a smart bomb", and that weapons manufacturers attribute a degree of precision to their munitions which is unrealistic and difficult to attain. Now, putting ourselves above any anti-american or anti-war sentiments; is there any truth to this? The article provides many explanations for what might cause deviations from high precision; but how often do these deviations happen? How often does the GPS signal get jammed, causing JDAMs etc. to need to revert to inertial guidance? Reading the following sentence, from "Satellite-Guided": "However, if the targeting information is accurate, satellite-guided weapons are significantly more likely to achieve a successful strike in any given weather conditions than any other type of precision-guided munition."? I'm curious as to what actually constitutes a successful strike. These questions are all born out of curiosity, which was piqued by the documentary. Any thoughts on the actual relative smartness of smart bombs, in all cases and not only ideal/exceptional ones?AniRaptor2001 (talk) 04:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The CEP (circular error probability) is only true for munitions that worked. Guidance duds can impact a long distance away without influence on the theoretical CEP value. "Successful strike" has more to do with the weapons effects and not only with its accuracy error. Lastdingo (talk) 01:50, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

forgotten guidance: wire-guided

Several guided bombs and guided glide bombs were wire-guided, and this should be mentioned. Lastdingo (talk) 01:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, in particular X-4 & X-7. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 05:21, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Laser beam riding, semi-active radar homing and fiber-optical guidance are not mentioned as well. None is in air/ground use, though. Lastdingo (talk) 15:35, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

scope of the article

Judging by the introduction, this article seems to be about guided air-to-ground munitions. It is doubtful whether ATGMs (even helicopter-based ATGMs) fit into this category well, as air/ground weaponry of non-helicopter aircraft is usually discussed separately of helicopter arms (which often happen to be a mix of aircraft and ground system munitions). It would be good to clarify the scope of this article to air-to-ground precision guided munitions or to expand it to PGMs in general. PGMs are also in use by tanks, mortars, rocket launchers, howitzers, ship cannons - even all modern torpedoes could be (mis)understood as PGMs.Lastdingo (talk) 15:41, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

history

I wrote a blog article about guided munition history, maybe it is helpful if someone wants to write about history in this article: http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2009/02/precision-munitions-history.html Lastdingo (talk) 01:42, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

No mention of Russian precision-guided munitions?

Just wondering why there's no mentioning of PGM's such as the Krasnopol (Weapon)

Victory in Germany (talk) 07:58, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Why split into Guided bomb?

I wonder if it was really necessary to have created Guided bomb with text copied from this article. I mean, this article (size: 16k) and Guided bomb (size: 13k) have almost the same content and wording, i don't see the logic of having separate articles. EuTuga^msg 18:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• Speaking of which, is there really even any definition as to what a "precision-guided munition? is? "Precision" is something that is relative; for example the WWII-era Fritz X or Azon would never be called precision-guided munitions by today's standards. However, as guidance technology improved, obviously so did the accuracy of guided munitions, to the point where we had the laser-guided bombs being used in the Vietnam War, then later the Gulf War, to eventually the JDAM and whatever else we've got today. My point is, at what point did we go from the more "primitive" guided munitions to the modern "precision-guided munition"? There's no clear line defining the two, and in fact I don't think that line exists at all, it's all been one continuous development. Which is why I say there should be just one article called "Guided munition" rather than having it named "Precision-guided munition". The latter seems to be simply a term cooked up by military PR specialists to paint a picture of American forces attacking targets with surgical precision. Not that using highly accurate bombs in wartime is a bad thing mind you, but I just think the term "precision-guided munition" is ultimately silly and misleading when you look at the history of guided munitions as a whole. —Masterblooregard (talk) 14:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
• I see that no justification for the article split was ever provided. Looking at the descriptions of the two topics, I see no distinction at all between a Guided bomb and a Precision-guided munition. The topic name "Guided bomb" is probably better, since it is more understandable to most people. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:45, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Weasel words and the like

This article is a more than a little bit riddled with weasel words. Lets try and steer this article away from terms like "The Germans" and instead actually research who invented or pioneered or implicated a technology.'''Aryeonos''' (talk) 06:49, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there anyway of sticking retronym into this sentence?

The advent of precision-guided munitions resulted in the renaming of older bombs as "gravity bombs", "dumb bombs", or "iron bombs". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blix1ms0ns (talk • contribs) 01:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Precision-guided munition

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Precision-guided munition's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "janes":

• From FN-6: "FN-6 (China), Man-portable surface-to-air missile systems". Jane's Information Group. Retrieved 30 December 2008.
• From Griffin LGB: "Griffin laser-guided bomb (LGB) system (Israel), Bombs – Precision and guided munitions". Jane's Air-Launched Weapons, Jane's Information Group. July 31, 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2013. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• From Seirina Guided Bomb: "Seirina Guided Bombs (Greece) - Jane's Air-Launched Weapons". Archived from the original on December 4, 2011. Retrieved 2015-03-15. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 00:53, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 20 August 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Withdrawn. No support was expressed, and this seems overdue for closure. There appears to be a consensus not to rename the article, and some distinction between the two topics was expressed. (non-admin closure) —BarrelProof (talk) 21:15, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

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Precision-guided munition → Guided bomb – Note that there is already an article at Guided bomb, but it was just an unjustified copy-paste fork from this one. Please see the prior discussion at Talk:Precision-guided munition#Why split into Guided bomb?. Looking at the description of the two topics, there is no real difference between them, so the copy-pasted fork should just be abandoned. But as an article name, "Guided bomb" seems better, since it is a more understandable name. There is no clear meaning to the term "precision" as used in the current article name, and "bomb" is more understandable than "munition". —BarrelProof (talk) 19:53, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose rename, oppose merge

@Mark Schierbecker: as the creator of guided bomb [2]. This was created in January 2011 and described as a "split". However I can't see much of a split, in terms of content being hived-off from one article to the other. So "reversing" an inappropriate split doesn't seem relevant.

The two articles also have different scopes, and this should be our guide as to how to move forwards, rather than questioning how we got here. Guided bombs are air-dropped bombs. Not powered missiles, not artillery shells. Also guided bombs have a relatively long, albeit imprecise, history. Precision-guided munitions in contrast are defined by their precision. A precise date on this is hard to give, but it's usually given (for combat) as the First Gulf War. Before this, bombs might be guided, but it was still no guarantee of them hitting their target. Nor are PGMs limited to air-dropped bombs. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:00, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I can't remember making this split, but I agree with Andy. PGM article should use summary style to summarize the concepts. Will try to look at this later this week. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 05:00, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Guided bombs are a subset of precision guided munitions. The PGM article should have a section on guided bombs, summarising the guided bombs article. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:22, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't think they're even a simple subset. The early guided bombs (WWII at least) were guided, but not to precision standards. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:32, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose rename — The move would cover up a whole terminology with an established usage. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 11:04, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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